The present invention relates generally to a method and apparatus for coordinating access to Internet web sites by a group of web browsers that are being run at a group of user terminals.
It is known that users can retrieve information from web sites (network sites) via the Internet. The basic model for retrieving information from web sites is user initiated information searching. Specifically, a user interacts with (via a terminal) a web browser to send a request to a web site. In response to the request, the web server for the web site retrieves the information requested and sends the web browser the information arranged in so called web page (HTML) format. One of the unique features of this model is the feature of "hyper-text links" embedded in web pages that have been retrieved. This feature enables a user in searching for information to "navigate" from one web page to another. In order to provide services (or assistance) to users (or customers) via the Internet, it is desirable to provide a mechanism to track activities performed to the web pages among a group of browsers.
One method of tracking web pages navigated is to install a monitoring program at a web site. When a terminal sends requests to a web site, the monitoring program at the web side collects the URLs for the requested web pages and sends the URLs to a server. However, under this method, the monitoring program is not always able to monitor the requests from the terminal, because when the terminal retrieves web pages from its browser cache space or from a proxy server, the requests are fulfilled locally and are never sent to the web site. As a result, the URLs are not accurately tracked.
Another method of tracking web pages navigated is to install a monitoring program together with a browser at a terminal. The monitoring program constantly communicates with the web browser. When the browser sends requests out, the monitoring program collects the URLs for the web pages requested by the browser and sends the URLs to a server. However, this method requires designing and installing monitoring programs that are capable of communicating with the different browsers. At the current time, different web browsers are manufactured by a variety of vendors, including: Netscape.RTM., Microsoft.RTM., Sun Microsystem, IBM, and others. For a programmer to design such a monitoring program, it requires him/her to know the details of a proprietary web browser, and it may require updating the monitoring program whenever a proprietary web browser is updated. In addition, a monitoring program designed for a web browser manufactured by one vendor is typically not portable to another web browser manufactured by another vendor because browser interface mechanisms are proprietary. Moreover, users may perceive it as intrusive to be required to install a specialized application capable of collecting and reporting the information about the web pages retrieved from all other web sites.
Therefore, there is a need for an improved method to provide more dependable web page tracking.
There is another need for an improved method to provide web page tracking without requiring knowledge of the details about the web navigation software.
There is yet another need for an improved method to design web page tracking software that is portable to different software environments.
The present invention meets these needs.